


Hitter-to-Hitter

by Miching_Mallecho



Series: The Huckleberry Job [4]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-23
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2018-02-26 17:51:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2661017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miching_Mallecho/pseuds/Miching_Mallecho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Quinn probably gets out of character (my bad).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hitter-to-Hitter

Quinn has to wait for the right moment to talk to Eliot. It's like Hardison intimated—this is a tough subject to bring up, especially with someone like Spencer. But Quinn thinks it would be better to have this talk Hitter-to-Hitter. The others...they might mess it up. So Quinn waits until Eliot has come back to the safe house, and he's alone. By this time, the job's pretty much over, and Quinn hasn't been able to ignore the tension radiating from the team. Hasn't been able to ignore the way silences stretch between them now. How Eliot's pulling away.

So Quinn waits until Eliot's done his part, and has come stumbling in beaten and bloody and looking for an ice pack. He waits until Eliot comes to him.

“Job's done, Quinn.” Eliot's leaning in the doorway, but mostly using the doorway to keep himself upright this time. He's got an icepack on the right side of his face and a hand slung across his ribs in a way that doesn't tell Quinn if it's his arm or ribs that are bothering him.

“How messy did you get?”

Eliot's staring at him intently now, and Quinn can see the tension even though the man looks like he just wants to collapse into a boneless heap. That's always been something Quinn's noticed being around Eliot: even when the man's beaten down and bone-tired, he's always still so tense it's like he's holding himself up with sheer force of will. “You're safe, and no one's dead.” Eliot's glaring at Quinn as if challenging the man to say something, but Quinn isn't falling into that trap. He's not here to lecture Eliot, he's trying to absolve him.

“They wouldn't treat you any differently,” Quinn says softly. “If you had had to get messy.”

Eliot doesn't move. He looks like he doesn't breathe. But Quinn has his full attention. It's a full twenty seconds before he answers. “You don't know that.”

“I do.” Quinn sits up in bed, and it doesn't hurt nearly as much anymore. He hopes he comes away from this conversation with his ribs still on the mend. “They called Nate.”

“They _what?”_

“They asked if they should call off the job. Because they were worried about you.”

“Worried I'd kill someone.”

“No. Worried you wouldn't speak to them again if you did.”

Eliot's glaring but he's got his head cocked to the side, so Quinn keeps going.

“You told them you worked for Moreau.”

“I didn't tell them _what I did_ for Moreau.”

“Did they ask?”

Eliot hesitates. “Parker did. I told her not to ask me, because I'd tell her if she did.”

“And she didn't ask again?”

“No.”

“That, I believe, is called trust.”

“You work alone, what would you know about trust?”

“I called you trusting you'd bail me out even if you had to drag yourself through hell to do it.” Quinn leans toward Eliot pointedly. “And you did.”

Eliot makes a noise between a scoff and a growl.

“And they know you've killed before. They know your history. And they know about the warehouse you burned down.”

If Eliot were a lesser man, he would have dropped the ice pack. Quinn can see it in is reaction; it looks like the man has been forcibly struck.

“Parker asked how they were going to pretend not to know if you did it this time too. Sophie told them to tell you they know.”

“ _Sophie_ \--”

“They all know. And they didn't treat you any differently.”

The ice pack is hanging by his side now, forgotten.

“Sophie said that sometimes in your line of work, it's necessary. She said she's underestimated you; that sometimes you destroy yourself for the sake of protecting them. And they're all grateful for it.”

“I can't just--”

“He's right.”

And damn they must both be slipping because Parker and Hardison walked in and _neither_ of the Hitters noticed.

“He's right,” Parker says again, walking to Eliot with a hand outstretched like you'd go to a wounded, scared animal. “We don't—we don't tell you we're grateful.”

“We knew, man.” Hardison steps up behind Parker. “We knew when you said your _dyin' day_ that you meant that literally, and we just...we didn't think about it. We didn't want to think about it. I've seen you take two bullets and shrug it off. You've offered to kill people, threatened to kill people, killed people for us. And we didn't, we didn't quite realize what it could do to you.”

“You can't leave.” Parker's closed the distance, is resting a hand on Eliot's chest. “You're still here but you're going further away and...and it _hurts_. I'm the Mastermind _dammit,_ and I say _you can't go_.”

Hardison steps up behind Parker and rests his hands on her shoulders, looks at Eliot over her head. Something passes, between the three of them there, and Quinn is pretty sure they've forgotten all about him and he's almost embarrassed that he's watching their private moment. And if it isn't absolution, it's some kind of redemption. Except looking back on what he knows about this crew, he's not really sure who's doing the saving and who's being saved. 


End file.
